Mr. Paul Jackman:

We had one haulier who was very engaged with the traineeship in Leitrim. He had three trainees who spent their time with him and, as they got qualified, he put them in vehicles. His experiences with the three drivers meant he could not keep them because of the damage they did and their inability to drive, even though they arrived with a State-given shiny licence. This was replicated and it has damaged the perception of the traineeship. It is primarily because of the standard, but in many cases the vehicle itself bears no relationship to the modern one. I will caveat that by saying that we have spent six years working in Europe. There is a new licence directive on its way and all the equipment that is being used is being upgraded and the training standards or requirements are being upgraded as well to try to make them more relevant.

To go back to the Deputy's point, the young people of today, and I see it with my own son, their engagement with the real world and the mechanical world is much reduced from what I remember doing because we did not have the digital playground. As Mr. Hyland said, the simulators are fantastic but they need they need to be put out in some real-life engagement with the mechanics of a vehicle and the dynamics of driving it in a controlled environment because they do not have that, as the Deputy said, although her son has an advantage over others because of living on a farm.

This man I referred to put the cost of damage that was done to his equipment at between €15,000 and €18,000. He pulled back from the traineeship and it was because of the calibre of the students and the training. The training to learn to drive just was not good enough for the workplace.